At the beginning of June 2022, Russian troops broke into two hypermarkets of the Epicenter chain in Kherson. Suspilne reported that the occupiers held the workers hostage and said that trade would continue under the leadership of the Russians.
The publication quoted a direct speech from one of the employees of the Kherson Epicenter: “during the meeting on June 2, there was a civilian, the main one, who will oversee these stores. He said he was from Russia. Last name: Yakubovsky. Patronymic - Leonidovich."
The Epicenter chain regained control over Kherson hypermarkets after the liberation of the city by the Ukrainian military, Radio Liberty notes. But during 2023-2024, the Russian army continued to shell Kherson, and as a result of the hits, both shopping centers burned down. And the “chief from the Russian Federation” with the surname Yakubovsky became the owner of “Epicenters” in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporozhye and Lugansk regions (in accordance with Russian legislation).
As “Schemes” found out, “Leonidovich” turned out to be a businessman associated with former MP from the OPZZh Natalya Korolevskaya, who has been wanted by Ukrainian law enforcement since February 2023, and who, as journalists discovered, has since been moving between Dubai (UAE) and Moscow.
"Stroytsentr" instead of "Epicenter"
The events that unfolded around the Lugansk hypermarket “Epicenter” after the occupation of the city by Russian troops and groups controlled by them in 2014 differ from those that occurred with the chain’s stores in other parts of the occupied Ukrainian territories.
In Crimea, “Epicenters” were renamed “Novacenters”, but for a long time they remained in the orbit of the ownership structure of the Gereg spouses. And in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, the manager of the hypermarkets renamed and re-registered according to the rules of Russian-controlled administrations was the current deputy from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party Gennady Galchuk, who until the end of July 2022 continued to receive a salary from the Ukrainian Epicenter K LLC and New Line LLC 1", belonging to the Geregs.
Alexander Gerega himself, in an interview with Forbes, argued that after the occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in 2014, the Epicenter K group of companies completely lost control over their retail facilities.
What happened to other stores of a large Ukrainian chain that fell under occupation along with Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian territories where they operated?
For example, in Luhansk, occupied in 2014, the shopping center was not only renamed (it became “Stroytsentr”), but also “nationalized.”
In 2015, the so-called “state enterprise” - State Unitary Enterprise Stroytsentr - began operating in the hypermarket. “State” refers to the status granted by the self-proclaimed occupation administration. Then, during a visit to the shopping center, the leader of the “LPR” group, Igor Plotnitsky, spoke positively about such changes. They say that “both workers and customers benefited from this.”
The store began to operate in new realities. Russian holidays were celebrated here and congratulations were given on “Republic Day”, and the suppliers of goods, according to reports from the “LPR” group, were companies from the Russian Federation.
No longer “state”
After Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on the “annexation” of the partially occupied regions of Zaporozhye, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk regions to Russia at the end of September 2022, information from the closed registers of the “LPR” group ended up in the open register of legal entities of the Russian Federation. Information about the State Unitary Enterprise Stroytsentr, as well as hundreds of other enterprises operating in the Ukrainian territories seized in 2014, also became available. “SUE Stroytsentr has turned into a Russian company with registration in occupied Lugansk.
From the same open register of Russian legal entities, Schemes journalists learned that in 2021, a private company with the same name, Stroytsentr LLC, was registered at the address of the Lugansk hypermarket. And since registration, according to open data, its financial performance has grown significantly. In particular, revenue in 2023 amounted to 1.7 billion rubles ($19.5 million), compared to revenue of 1 billion rubles (equivalent in dollars) in 2022.
“Schemes” established that after a full-scale invasion, it was this company that carried out trade in the former Lugansk “Epicenter”: the tax number and name of the mentioned Stroytsentr LLC were indicated on the cash register receipts.
“Schemes” established that after a full-scale invasion, the Stroytsentr company is trading in the former Luhansk “Epicenter”: the tax number and name are indicated on the cash receipts
Since July 2023, Stroytsentr has been working with tax and customs preferences, since the company became a participant in the so-called “free economic zone” (created in the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions in accordance with the law signed by Putin in the summer of 2023 - ed.), which provides certain benefits for private businesses.
Stroytsentr LLC is the first enterprise in the occupied part of the Lugansk region that received a certificate of inclusion in the unified register of participants in the Russian “free economic zone”. The director of the company, Alexander Leonidovich Yakubovsky, spoke about this.
Alexander Yakubovsky is the person who, in June 2022, in then-occupied Kherson, convinced the employees of Epicenter that he was “in charge.” He is both the director of Stroytsentr LLC and a co-owner of a 45% stake in this company through Universal-Yug LLC (founded in Krasnodar, Russian Federation).
Newly occupied areas of Zaporozhye
“Schemes” discovered that his “domination” in the structure of the former “Epicenters” extended to hypermarkets in Zaporozhye, which came under occupation along with these territories after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
According to the Russian register of legal entities, in addition to the share in Stroytsentr in Lugansk, through Universal-Yug LLC, Alexander Yakubovsky now co-owns the Stroytsentr-Zaporozhye company. It is registered under the laws of the Russian Federation in occupied Melitopol on Catherine the Great Street, 172/6. This is the address of the former “Epicenter” (before the invasion of the Russian army the street was called Interkulturnaya).
Thus, Alexander Yakubovsky owns significant shares in companies trading not only in the former Epicenter in Lugansk, but also in Melitopol, occupied after 2022.
Pool Royal
Who is this person who received the Epicenter trading floors after the occupation of the Russian Federation in both the Luhansk region and Zaporozhye? It turned out that he has long-standing ties with an influential political figure during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, Natalya Korolevskaya, who retained her mandate as a people’s deputy until February 2023, and who fled Ukraine after the start of the big war.
Schemes journalists found out that Alexander Yakubovsky has both Russian and Ukrainian citizenship. In Ukraine, he is also the founder of two enterprises.
In particular, the Ukrainian LLC “Universal-Trade”, “registered” in Lugansk on Gazeta Luganskaya Pravda Street, 153v. This address appears as the place of registration of the Lugansk “Stroytsentr” in the “order” of the occupation administration of the Zaporozhye region. With this document, the Mebel Nova chain was transferred to the management of Stroytsentr.
Alexander Yakubovsky’s partner in Universal Trade at least until 2008 was Oleg Pogodin. According to the Ukrainian registry, they are still co-founders of another Ukrainian company, Intertrade.
Oleg Pogodin is a longtime ally of the former people’s deputy from the already banned OPZZh party Natalya Korolevskaya. In 2007, when Korolevskaya was a member of BYuT, he also ran for the Verkhovna Rada from this political force; in 2012, when the politician created her own project “Ukraine - Forward!”, he received 29th place on her electoral list for parliament.
During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, Oleg Pogodin worked as first deputy minister of social policy Natalya Korolevskaya in the government of Mykola Azarov. And in the elections in 2019, he fought for a deputy mandate from the OPZZH in the Donetsk region. Local media wrote about the scandal that Natalya Korolevskaya caused during the vote count. After Pogodin’s loss, she tried to appeal the election results through the courts.
In addition to the indirect connection between Alexander Yakubovsky and Natalya Korolevskaya through Oleg Pogodin, there is also a more direct one. Yakubovsky is a business partner of the ex-deputy’s brother, Konstantin Korolevsky, a former Russian official. Together they are co-founders of the Russian company UBS, registered in Crimea. The material from the Center for Investigative Journalism, “Korolskoy’s brother is expanding business in Crimea,” states that it was Yakubovsky who was the liaison and director of Korolevskoy’s enterprises on the annexed peninsula.
The fate of Natalia Korolevskaya after February 2022
The powers of people's deputies Korolevskaya and her husband Yuriy Solod were terminated by the Verkhovna Rada ahead of schedule in February 2023.
In the same month, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office informed Korolevskaya about suspicions of entering false information into the electronic declaration for 2020.
According to the investigation, the people's choice did not declare two land plots in the Kyiv region with a total area of more than 0.8 hectares. In addition, she did not indicate in the declaration her property in the Russian Federation: a residential building with an area of 120.1 square meters. m and a land plot of 1.13 hectares. Previously, the fact that Natalya Korolevskaya owns real estate in the Moscow region, which she never declared, was mentioned in the Schemes investigation.
The total value of undeclared property, according to NABU, was more than 4.3 million hryvnia. Since then, the deputy has not commented on the presentation of suspicion to her.
According to Schemes’ source in law enforcement agencies, Korolevskaya left Ukraine in April 2022. In February 2023, she was put on the wanted list. And at the end of the same year, NABU renewed its suspicion of the ex-deputy: detectives established that the amount of undeclared property exceeded 13 million hryvnia.
Where is Royal?
According to Ukrainskaya Pravda journalists, after the full-scale invasion, Natalya Korolevskaya and her husband Yuriy Solod moved to the UAE. UP journalists also noticed the couple’s eldest son, Rostislav Solod, in Dubai.
According to flight information that journalists received from the Ukrainian hacker community KibOrg from the Russian Sirena-Travel database, in April 2023, Korolevskaya and Malt flew from Dubai to Moscow and back several times. That is, after being put on the wanted list, the former people’s deputy repeatedly traveled to Russia, where she has a house and a plot of land.
Schemes journalists called Alexander Yakubovsky and asked to comment on the facts revealed in this investigation. In response, he only noted: “I don’t understand who occupied the Lugansk region. Russians? This is false information." After that he hung up and did not answer further calls.
Separately, journalists contacted Epicenter for comment. The PR department of the chain reported: “Epicenter K LLC does not control activities in shopping centers located in Lugansk (since 2014) and Melitopol (since 2022, after the full-scale invasion of Russian Federation troops into the territory of Ukraine and occupation of the city). We do not know who is operating in these shopping centers after losing control over them.”
“Schemes” have not yet been able to get a comment from Natalya Korolevskaya.
